Best of Me
by Red Skye
Summary: “Let’s never go back,” Rin decided, her lips so close to his ear that he could feel her warm breath. “Never.” He gave a short laugh and shrugged before he nodded. “I can deal with that.”
1. Part I

**_October 8th, 2006._**

_**I do not own the song 'Best of Me' by The Starting Line.**_

_**I wrote this a long time ago and found it crap; I rewrote some of it to improve it.**_

**_This will be two chapters._**

**Best of Me**

_**Tell me what you thought about when you were gone and so alone**_

_**The worst is over**_

_**You can have the best of me**_

_**We got older **_

_**But we're still young**_

_**We never grew out of this feeling that we won't give up.**_

"_Hi!"_

"_Hi…"_

_Haru didn't know what to say. It wasn't every day… actually… it wasn't ever that girls talked to him at the park. His reputation of always going 'black' at school scared most of the girl's he'd have liked to talk to away…_

"_What's your name?" the girl asked him grabbing his right hand with both of hers and smiling the prettiest smile he had ever seen._

"_Hat… su…haru…" he stammered, not sure if he should be embarrassed or not. He was five years old and he had a tutor for his speech… but he still couldn't say his own name._

"_I like that name," she giggled, letting one of her hands go but holding his firmly with the other. "My name is Isuzu."_

"_I… su…su?" he said slowly, his difficulties making her name hard to say also._

_She nodded and giggled. "Yep. But Gure-nii calls me Rin, so you could call me that if you wanted, Hatsuharu-kun!"_

"_Rin," he repeated. That was much easier._

"_Mama says I don't have to be home until supper tonight," she told him as she started pulling him up the park's grassy hill. "Will you come play with me until then?"_

_He didn't really have a choice because they were already at the top of the hill. "Okay," he said._

"_Yay! I'm so happy," Rin smiled at him, and he was sure that if she smiled at him like that forever than he would always want to be around her. "Do you know how to jump rope?"_

_Haru shook his head slowly._

"_No?" she giggled as she pulled a jump rope out from behind a bench where she had hit it earlier and began jumping. Hatsuharu stared at her, wondering what was so familiar about this girl and why she was so… happy._

_She laughed as she noticed him staring at her. "Your hair…" she started, and he gave an angry sigh. Everyone always had to comment on his white and black hair. He was somewhat shocked though when she ran her hand through it slowly. "It's so soft and white! I like it," she told him, and he was a bit confused. She giggled again. "You're the Ox, right?"_

_He nodded. _She only knew that because I'm so stupid…

"_I'm the Horse," she told him, blushing as she dropped the jump rope and it fell into the fresh grass. "I've seen you at the banquet."_

"_I've seen you," he told her, cutting his sentence short when she wrapped her arms around him for a long, long time._

"_That means I can hug you!" she exclaimed, still holding onto him as he returned her hug for even longer, a feeling of belongingness spreading over him. He smiled for the first time he could ever remember and a tear fell into Rin's long, black hair._

_**Here we lay again on two separate beds**_

_**Riding phone lines**_

_**To meet a familiar voice and pictures drawn from memory**_

_**We reflect on miscommunications and misunderstandings**_

_**And missing each other too much to have had to let go**_

"Gure-nii?"

Rin stepped onto Shigure's porch as he looked up from his latest manuscript.

"Yes, Rin, come in," he smiled pleasantly at the skimpily dressed girl. "You know," he started as she walked into his office and sat down in front of him. "It's getting colder outside. You should really start thinking about updating your wardrobe."

"You know you like it," she snapped bitterly before she leaned onto him, wrapping her frail arms around his shoulders—her way of getting the information she wanted.

"What brings you here on this fine Sunday afternoon?" he asked her, remaining as calm as he could manage with her long hair draping over him and her barely dressed body against him.

"I'm becoming angry," she whined. "It's giving me a headache."

"No need to be querulous," he said, patting her back slowly. "What's giving you a headache?"

"I…" she started, now sitting on his lap with her legs around his waist. She held onto his shoulders as she held his eye contact. "_…Gure-nii…_ I don't know what to do. I… and him…"

"Hmm… by 'him', you mean Hatsuharu, I presume?"

She nodded, blushing as she hugged him again. She felt deflated now that she had finally let the words out. "I don't _want_ to obsess over him… but…"

"…but…?"

Rin sighed again. They were right there in the front of her mind, but three words just wouldn't come out.

_**We turn our music down and we whisper**_

_**Say what you're thinking right now**_

"_I_ broke up with _him_, not the other way around."

"Why did you break up with him in the first place?"

Rin's mouth twitched. "Well… you can keep a secret, can't you?"

"Sure," Shigure said, not sure himself if he was lying or not.

But Rin trusted him.

"…that was when I was in the hospital," she began, wiping a tear from off of her cheek. "I had a lot to think about… and… I thought that if I continued… _loving_ him… that Akito would hurt him too. And then I would never forgive myself…"

"So you thought that by breaking his poor little heart, you were protecting him?"

"…breaking his heart?" she choked. She had obviously never thought of it that way.

"He was so upset that day, I recall… but you didn't think of his emotional needs, did you? You were just thinking of how to protect him from harm that wasn't guaranteed. Ah yes…"

"He was… upset?" she said slowly.

"Mmhmm… after he destroyed the classroom at school, he came to see me. That was the first time I had seen him cry so hard since… well, since after that episode with your mother at the hospital…"

_Hatsuharu cried? Because of… me?_

"Gure-nii… what have I done?" she sobbed into his shoulder.

"I assume you were only thinking of what would be best for Haru," Shigure sighed, picking her up off of his lap and setting her on the ground next to him. "And you thought everything would turn out okay if you eliminated yourself from the equation."

"I love him," she coughed, burying her face in her hands. "I love him."

"And I know he loves you, Rin-chan, more than anything. You shouldn't be telling me, you should be telling him."

"I can't… Gure-nii, he ran away. Nobody knows where he went."

_**Tell me what you thought about when you were gone and so alone**_

_**The worst is over**_

_**You can have the best of me**_

_**We got older **_

_**But we're still young**_

_**We never grew out of this feeling that we won't give up.**_

"Holy shit…"

Hatsuharu broke a tree branch off of a sakura that had just scraped open his forehead and threw it on the ground. He licked his dirty hand and tried to wipe away the blood, but that just made it sting more. He sighed as he continued down the muddy path. It was hopeless. He had been lost for days. He was cold, dirty, hungry, and exhausted… but most of all, he was sad. It took every fiber of his being not to burst into tears and die.

He hadn't meant to get lost… he never _meant_ to get lost… He had just gone for a simple walk in the middle of the night and hadn't been able to find his way back.

The thing that tortured him the most, though, was the _visions_ he kept seeing. They were all of _her_. Of his beautiful Rin, hiding behind the trees and shrubbery and running ahead of him, giggling and calling out to him.

"_Haru! Hatsuharu-kun, I'm so happy! Come catch me, Haru!"_ the voices called to him, each saying something she had said to him at least once in his lifetime. Each followed by her adorably girlish giggle that was rare, like a precious gem.

"_Haru!"_ the voices were calling to him, and he looked up. There she was, smiling and waving, quite a way's in front of him, standing in the center of a shining light.

"Come _on_," he sighed, so angry he wanted to tear down all of the trees in the stupid forest.

But something was different.

There was… light.

Gasping with the very last ounce of his energy, he began to run. The teasing Rin disappeared, but the light did not.

"Sensei's house… he gasped as he eyed the large house through squinted eyes. He stopped, hearing an all too familiar noise.

Crying.

His Rin's crying.

He crept up to the house, hiding behind the half-open door that led to Shigure's office.

"I love him," she coughed, and his heartbeat pounded in his head. "I love him."

"And I know he loves you, Rin-chan, more than anything. You shouldn't be telling me, you should be telling him."

Haru wiped away what he thought was blood dripping from his forehead, but it was really a tear streaming out of his eye.

_**Jumping to conclusions made me fall away from you**_

_**I'm so glad that the truth has brought back together me and you**_


	2. Part II

_**Part Two-**_

"I can't… Gure-nii, he ran away. Nobody knows where he went."

Hatsuharu was about to jump forward into her arms, kiss her, and apologize a million times for upsetting her before two more people burst into the room.

"_YOU!_" Akito yelled, pointing to Rin as Shigure and Hatori tried to calm her. "Where is he, you skank? WHERE HAVE YOU HIDDEN HIM?"

"I don't know!" Rin cried, standing up and backing away. She stopped in front of the veranda. She was so close that Haru could've reached out and grabbed her, had he the courage to reveal his hiding place…

"DON'T LIE!" Akito yelled, leaping across the room and slapping her. "WHERE IS HE?"

"I don't know!" she yelled again, shoving Akito into Shigure.

"Oh, I'll teach you to touch me, you WHORE!" Akito yelled, thrashing out at her and scratching her face and chest, despite the hindrance of Shigure. "YOU DON'T TOUCH ME! YOU DON'T TOUCH HATSUHARU OR ANY OF MY ANIMALS!"

Hatsuharu jumped out to catch Rin as Akito turned her around and threw her out the door by the shoulders. Haru and Rin collided as Haru fell off of the porch into the dirt and Rin sat with her knees against his hips, on top of him.

"Oh… oh my God," she gasped, running her hands through his dirty hair and over his chest as if she couldn't believe it was really him. Akito's screams were becoming quieter as they ignored her, and as she became tired from screaming.

"I am _so_ sorry, Rin," he coughed, still trying to breathe after the fall. "I scared you…"

"You're here… with me… right now… Haru, it's you…" she cried, and by the way she was talking, Haru was sure she hadn't been able to get him off of her mind as he had been with her.

_**We're sitting on the ground and we whisper**_

_**Say what you're thinking out loud**_

_**We turn our music down and we whisper**_

_**We're sitting on the ground and we whisper**_

_**We turn our music down**_

_**We're sitting on the ground**_

_**The next time I'm in town**_

_**We will kiss, girl**_

_**We will kiss, girl**_

Her pretty smile returned to her face through her tears. The world seemed numb as the relief swept over both of them. She leaned over him, getting closer until their lips were touching. Akito, Shigure, Hatori, and even Hatsuharu were surprised at her not-so-wise decision until Haru thought _screw it_ and kissed her back.

Haru found the strength to sit up as he leaned into her, his mouth pressing harder and his tongue searching deeper inside her mouth. It was the kiss he had been longing for since that recent day at the hospital, her kiss screaming that she had missed his lips.

"E… Enough!" Akito coughed angrily, unable to bear it or move any longer. "S… Stop that right now!"

But Haru and Rin weren't listening, their passion overwhelming them as the kiss became deeper and Akito became angrier.

"YOU!" Akito yelled, lunging out of Shigure's grasp and grabbing a fistful of Rin's hair at her scalp and snapping her head back. She let out a scream as Akito pulled her up. "Stop it! Stop loving each other!" she demanded, unwanted tears of hatred escaping her eyes.

"Akito, let her go!" Shigure yelled, pushing Rin into Haru's open arms. "You can't make them stop being in love! They need each other! A lover should be someone who can bring out the best in a person, as Haru does for Rin and Rin, Haru!"

"No!" Akito mumbled, falling to her knees in weakness. "You'll love me… and only me… you filthy…"

"Rin," Haru whispered, his voice scratchy. She nodded, and holding hands, they ran back into the forest.

_**Tell me what you thought about when you were gone and so alone**_

_**The worst is over**_

_**You can have the best of me**_

_**We got older but we're still young**_

_**We never grew out of this feeling that we won't**_

_**Feeling that we can't**_

_**We're not ready to give up**_

"So this is your 'turf'," Rin gasped, out of breath as they slowed down to a walk in the trees.

"…I didn't mean to get lost," he mumbled.

Rin grasped his hand more tightly. "Just… don't do that again. You… scared me."

"Don't do that again."

Rin stopped walking, tilting her head to the side in confusion. "Do what?"

"…don't… stay so far away."

Rin felt a tear drip off of her cheek. He was referring to the 'break up', she knew. "I…"

What was she supposed to say? She could never tell him the truth… that Akito terrified her so much that she would distance their relationship.

"We're… we're still kids, you know. So we can do stupid things. Like… run away into a forest," Haru decided.

"That's your idea of stupid?" Rin raised an eyebrow, a smile playing at her lips.

_What's stupid is breaking up with you because of Akito…_

"Guess so," he shrugged.

Rin laughed for what seemed like the first time since _that day_. She let go of his hand only to wrap her arms around him. He hugged her back.

"Let's never go back," Rin decided, her lips so close to his ear that he could feel her warm breath. "Never."

He gave a short laugh and shrugged before he nodded. "I can deal with that."

_**We got older but we're still young**_

_**We never grew out of this feeling that we won't give up**_

_**-Red Skye**_


End file.
